Quag Keep (6 page)

The Golden Dragon had not come unwounded from that encounter. For a long time he had disappeared from the sight of men, though before that disappearance, he had visited the adepts who had given Ironnose being. Of them and their castle was left thereafter only a few fire-scorched stones and an evil
aura that had kept even the most hardy of adventurers out of that particular part of the land to this very day.

“So we seek out Lichis,” Ingrge remarked. “What if he will have no word with us?”

“You”—Hystaspes swung to Naile—“that creature of yours.” Now he pointed the staff at the pseudo-dragon curled against the berserker's thick neck just above the edging of his mail, as if it had turned into a torque, no longer a living thing. Its eyes were mere slits showing between scaled lids. And its jaws were now firmly closed upon that spear-pointed tongue. “In that creature you may have a key to Lichis. They are of one blood, though near as far apart in line as a snake and Lichis himself. However—” Now he shrugged and tossed the ivory rod behind him, not watching, as it landed neatly on a tabletop. “I have told you all I can.”

“We shall need provisions, mounts.” Yevele's thumb again caressed her lower lip.

Hystaspes's lips twisted. Perhaps the resulting grimace served the wizard for a smile of superiority.

The elf nodded, briskly. “We can take nothing from you, save that which you have laid upon us—the geas.” With that part of Power Lore born into his kind, he appeared to perceive more than the rest of their company.

“All I might give would bear the scent of wizardry.” Hystaspes agreed.

“So be it.” Milo held out his hand and looked down at the bracelet. “It would seem that it is now time for us to test the worth of these and see how well they can serve us.” He did not try to turn any of the dice manually. Instead he stared at them, seeking to channel all his thought into one command. Once, in
that other time and world, he had thrown just such dice for a similar purpose.

The sparks which marked their value began to glow. He did not try to command any set sum from such dealing, only sent a wordless order to produce the largest amount the dice might yield.

Dice spun—glowed. As they became again immobile, a drawstring money bag lay at the swordsman's feet. For a moment or two the strangeness, the fact that he had been able to command the dice by thought alone, possessed him. Then he went down on one knee, jerked loose a knotting of strings, to turn out on the floor what luck had provided. Here was a mixture of coins, much the same as any fighter might possess by normal means. There were five gold pieces from the Great Kingdom, bearing the high-nosed, haughty faces of two recent kings; some cross-shaped trading tokens from the Land of the Holy Lords struck out in copper but still well able to pass freely in Greyhawk where so many kinds of men, dwarves, elves, and others traveled. In addition he saw a dozen of those silver, half-moon circles coined in Faraaz, and two of the mother-of-pearl disks incised with the fierce head of a sea-serpent which came from the island Duchy of Maritiz.

Yevele, having witnessed his luck, was the next to concentrate on her own bracelet, producing another such purse. The coins varied, but Milo thought that approximately in value they added up to the same amount as his own effort had procured. Now the others became busy. It was Deav Dyne, who through his training as a clerk was best able to judge the rightful value of unusual pieces (Gulth had two hexagons of gold bearing a flaming
torch in high relief—these Milo could not identify at all) and tallied their combined wealth.

“I would say,” he said slowly, after he had separated the pieces into piles, counted and examined those that were more uncommon, “we have enough, if we bargain skillfully. Mounts can be gotten at the market in the foreign quarter. Our provisions—perhaps best value is found at the Sign of the Pea Stalk. We should separate and buy discreetly. Milo and—shall we say you, Ingrge, and Naile—to the horse dealers, for with you lies more knowledge of what we need. Gulth must have his own supplies—” He looked to the lizardman. “Have you an idea where to go?”

The snouted head moved assent as the long clawed hand picked up coins Deav Dyne swept in his direction, putting them back into the pouch that had appeared before him. Unlike those of the others it was not leather, but fashioned of a fish that had been dried, its head removed, and a dull metal cap put in its place.

Milo hesitated. He was armed well enough—a sword, his shield, a belt knife with a long and dangerous blade. But he thought of a crossbow. And how about spells? Surely they had a right to throw also for those?

When he made his suggestion Deav Dyne nodded. “For myself, I am permitted nothing more than the knife of my calling. But for the rest of you—”

Again Milo was the first to try. He concentrated on the bracelet, striving to bring to the fore of his mind a picture of the crossbow, together with a quota of bolts. However, the dice did not fire with life and spin. And, one after another, saving only
Wymarc and Deav Dyne—the bard apparently already satisfied with what he had—they tried, to gain nothing.

The wizard once more favored them with grimace of a smile. “Perhaps you had already equipped yourselves by chance before
that
summoned you,” he remarked. “I would not waste more time. By daylight it would be well for you to be out of Greyhawk. We do not know what watch Chaos may have kept on this tower tonight, nor the relation of the Dark Ones to our enemy.”

“Our enemy—” snorted Naile, swinging around to turn his back on the wizard with a certain measure of scorn. “Men under a geas have one enemy already, wizard. You have made us
your
weapons. I would take care, weapons have been known to turn against those who use them.” He strode toward the door without looking back. His mighty shoulders, with the boar helm riding above, expressed more than his words. Naile Fangtooth was plainly beset by such a temper as made his kind deadly enemies.

4

PARTS OF GREYHAWK NEVER SLEPT. THE GREAT MARKET OF THE
merchants, edging both the Thieves' Quarter and the foreign section of the free city, was bright with the flares of torches and oil lanterns. People moved about the stalls, a steady din of voices arose. You could bargain here for a bundle of noisome rags, or for a jewel that once topped some forgotten king's crown of state. To Greyhawk came the adventurers of the world. The successful brought things that they showed only behind the dropped curtains of certain booths. The prospective buyers could be human, elvish, dwarf—even orc or other followers of Chaos as well as of Law. In a free city the balance stood straight-lined between Dark and Light.

There were guards who threaded among the narrow lanes of the stalls. But quarrels were settled steel to steel. In those they did not meddle, save to make sure riot did not spring full born from some scuffle. A wayfarer here depended upon his own weapons and wits, not upon any aid from those guardians of the city.

Naile muttered to himself in such a low whisper that the words did not reach Milo through the subdued night roar of the market. Perhaps the swordsman would not have understood them even if he had heard, for to a berserker the tongues of beasts were as open as the communication of humankind. They had gone but a short way into the garish, well-lighted lines of booths, when Fangtooth stopped, waiting for the other two, swordsman and elf, to come up with him.

The pseudo-dragon still lay, perhaps sleeping, curled about the massive lift of his throat. Under his ornately crowned helmet his own face was flushed, and Milo could sense the heat of anger still building in the other. As yet that emotion was under iron control. Should it burst the dam, Naile might well embroil them all in quick battle, picking some quarrel with a stranger to vent his rage against the wizard.

“Do you smell it?” The berserker's voice sounded thick, as if his words must fight hard to win through that strangling anger. Under the rim of his helmet, his eyes swept back and forth, not to touch upon either of his companions, but rather as if in that crowd he sought to pick out some one his axe could bring down.

There were smells in plenty here, mainly strong, and more than half-bordering on the foul. Ingrge's head was up, his nostrils expanded. The elf did not look about him. Rather he tested the steamy air as if he might separate one odor from all the rest, identify it, lay it aside, and try again.

To Milo the slight warning came last. Perhaps because he had been too caught up in the constant flow of the scene about them. His sense for such was, of course, far less acute than that of either of his companions. But now he felt the same uneasiness that had ridden him in the inn, as well as along the way the
wizard's guide had taken them. Somewhere in this crowd there existed interest in—them!

“Chaos,” Ingrge said, and then qualified that identification. “With something else. It is clouded.”

Naile snorted. “It is of the Dark and it watches,” he returned. “While we walk under a geas! I wish I had that damn wizard's throat between my two hands, to alter the shape of it—for good! It would be an act of impiety to foul my good skull-splitter”—he touched his axe where it hung at his belt—“with his thin and treacherous blood!”

“We are watched.” Milo did not address that as a question to either elf or berserker. “But will it come to more than watching?” He surveyed the crowd, now not seeking the identity of the foe (for unless the enemy made an overt move he knew his skills could not detect the source of danger) but rather noting those places where they might set their backs to a solid wall and face a rush—should that materialize.

“Not here—or yet.” There was firm confidence in Ingrge's answer.

Seconds later the berserker grunted an assent to that.

“The sooner that we ride out of this trap of a city,” he added, “the better.” His hand rose and he touched with a gentleness that seemed totally alien to his shaggy and brutal strength the head of the pseudo-dragon. “I do not like cities and this one stinks!”

The elf was already on the move, threading a way through the market crowd. Milo had an odd feeling that the three of them were nearly invisible. No hawker or merchant called them to look at his wares, though those about them were sometimes even seized by the cloak edges and urged to view this or that marvel so cheaply offered that no man could resist.

He would have liked to linger by one display where the seller did not raise his head from his work as they pushed past. Here were dwarf-wrought arms—swords, throwing knives, daggers, a mace or two—one large enough even to fit into Naile's paw. The owner stood with his back to them, his forge fire glowing so that the heat reached out as his hammer rose and fell in a steady beat upon metal.

If what Hystaspes had said was true (and Milo felt it was), even if he had carried twice as heavy a purse as that which the bracelet had brought him, he could not have spent a single piece at this booth. Those rules, dim and befogged, but still available in part to his memory, told Milo that he was already equipped with all that fate—or the sorcery of this world—would allow him.

“This way.” Just a little past the temptation of the sword-smith's forge, the elf took a sharp turn to the right. After passing between two more rows of booths (these smaller, less imposing than those they had earlier viewed), they came upon the far side of the market itself where there were no more stalls, rather rope-walled corrals and picket lines and some cages set as a final wall. Here the live merchandise was on view.

Camels, kneeling and complaining (placed by market regulation as far from the horse lines as possible), puffed out their foul breath at passersby. Beyond them was a small flock of oriths, their mighty wings pinned tight up their feathered sides by well-secured restraints. Oriths were hard to handle and must be eternally watched. They just might answer to an elf's commands but for a man to attempt to ride these winged steeds was folly.

There were hounds, their leashes made fast to stakes driven deeply into the ground. They raised snarling lips as Naile
passed, but backed away and whimpered when he looked upon them. A berserker was not their meat for the hunt, their instinct told them that.

Some feline squalled from a cage but kept to the shadows so only a dusky outline of its crouched body could be seen. It was onto the horses that Milo, now in the lead, moved eagerly. He began at once to study the mounts, which ranged from a trained war steed, its front hooves already shod with knife-edged battle shoes, to ponies, whose ungroomed hides were matted with mountain weeds and who rolled their eyes and tried to strike out with their hind feet at anyone reckless enough to approach them unwarily. To tame such as those was a thankless task.

Milo wanted the war horse. It was seldom one of those came into the open marketplace for sale, unless some engagement had left an army or a raiding party so bloated with loot they could afford to cull captured animals. But for such an expedition as faced them now—no, that fighting-trained stallion could not last in a long wilderness or mountain haul. They were not even ridden, except in a battle, their owners having them led instead, while riding a smaller breed until the trumpets sounded.